Friday, July 13, 2012

Learning Styles

Maria Capelli

Post 3

6.1 Learning Styles

I’ve
been told that I am a visual learner, but do I really learn better by seeing
things? There are three styles of learning: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
The first two are self-explanatory, and kinesthetic learning is learning by
doing the action you are attempting to learn. Supposedly most people will fall
into one of these three groups of learning styles. Since everyone learn things
different ways and at different paces it makes sense to think that associating
people with their appropriate learning styles will provide positive results.
However, all the claims made by learning styles are not proven by scientific
science. Here are some claims to the benefits of knowing and using your
learning style:

Benefits of Determining Your
Learning Type
Some of these benefits of learning which category that you fall under when it
comes to learning type include:

Being able to learn and absorb information the first
time that you hear it and reducing the amount of time and repetition that
is required when learning.

Reducing the amount of reviewing and study time using
methods of learning that are not compatible with your learning ability.

Defining your learning type can help you to choose the
best study method for you. The majority of people are unsure about which
methods that they should use to study and therefore learning which method
enables you to learn best can enable you to learn effectively with the
least amount of (knowledge.http://www.learningguide.org/learningstyles.htm)

All these claims seem to be backed
up by a bunch of pseudoscience. In chapter 6.1 of our book, research has found
that “[The assumption that one can improve instruction by matching materials to
children’s modality strengths] appears to lack even minimal empirical support.”
Modality refers to vision and hearing sensations. Even teachers who have
attended learning styles workshops have said they stopped trying to match
children by their learning styles. However, many people still believe that
learning styles can improve performance. The Huntington Learning Center is where
children who are behind in school can go to get tutoring. They believe that
determining learning styles are very important for the success of children. Here
is their description of learning styles and if you click on the link it will
bring you to a page where you could determine your child’s learning style. Although I don’t know how well I feel about
sending my child to a tutoring center where they use instructions supported by pseudoscience.

All parents know that children have unique personalities,
likes and dislikes, and of course, strengths and weaknesses. Just as every
child is his or her own person, when it comes to learning style, no two
children process information exactly the same way. What is a learning style?
Put simply, your child's learning style is the manner in which he or she learns
best. While there are many definitions of different types of learning styles, a
common way to categorize learning preference is through the senses - in
particular, visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Here are some helpful questions
parents can use to assess their own child's sensory learning styles:(http://huntingtonlearning.com/resources/p-learningstyles/)

1 comment:

I believe, this chapter also revealed the level of personal knowledge that a child or person has at any given point in time may have a greater influence on how well they learn new subject matter than any pseudo-scientific learning style. So it appears that a child or person’s level of present knowledge effects how well they learn new material in a classroom setting. Learning styles are a meaningless effort at placing people into categories.

Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

The popular media and self-help industry is rife with extraordinary claims. Alien experimentation, psychic detectives, mediums, ESP, extreme therapies and miracle products are all examples of how pseudoscience and the paranormal have become prevalent, popular and even an extremely lucrative enterprise. The majority of these examples defy the basic laws of science, logic and common sense yet they appeal to a large number of people. Here we will use science, specifically a psychological perspective to explore these popular theories and claims, and learn to think critically in order to be able to constructively evaluate them.